Anemone
by Chroix
Summary: In the post-war wizarding world, several witches and wizards are navigating the waters of love and lust whilst trying to keep up with the demands of their professional and personal lives. Harry/Hermione, Draco/Ginny, Fred/Angelina, Remus/Sirius.


Author's Note: While this fic is not a PWP, it will certainly focus more on developing the relationships between the main characters in the narrative. If you are looking for a fast-paced drama, then I suggest looking elsewhere. Otherwise, this is also AU; Sirius Black and Remus Lupin never died, Tonks never existed and of course, the "19 years later" epilogue is not taken into consideration. You will probably notice other AU elements as the story progresses. This is the first chapter of what I hope will be a many-chaptered story. As you can see, this chapter is also 15,000 words and so I hope to have updates every month or so. Please review, because it gives me the fuel to keep going. Thanks for reading.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all of its components belong to J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made off of the posting of this fanfiction and no trademark infringement is intended.

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE: HEARTS ON FIRE **

_Oh, well I knew you shook the set-up baby, of all the leaves up in the ground  
And I know our song is old and heavy as I see dry leaves fallin' down, oh  
With all this fever in my mind, I could drown in your kerosene eyes  
Oh, you're just a riddle in the sky  
Oh, where do my bluebirds fly?_

-Tallest Man on Earth

* * *

Harry's office was swelteringly hot that Friday morning—the cooling charms had little effect as they battled the damp heat on the Ministry's 2nd floor. An intern had to be sent in every three hours to recast the spells, her usually sleek blonde hair in a static halo around her head. She cast a self-conscious glance at herself as she exited, nervously tugging at the edge of her skirt. Harry had that effect on younger witches, Ron thought with some wry bitterness.

"She's cute," Ron stated, watching her as she waited for the elevator, batting at a small paper plane that was an inter-office memo as it fluttered too close to her head. "Don't you think?"

"Hmm?" Was the distracted reply that Harry gave, not glancing away from the parchment before him, "yeah, I guess." Ron let the subject drop, and studied Harry instead. His usually untidy hair was matted to his forehead with sweat, and beads of perspiration ran down the bridge of his nose.

Five years had done little to change the face of his childhood friend. His features had perhaps defined themselves—his jaw sharper, shadowed in stubble, and his shoulders slightly broader. Certainly, he had caught up to Ron in height, but whereas Ron had retained his lankiness, Harry had filled out in a way that was due to regular recreational Quidditch games, and perhaps a bit unfairly, genetics. The green eyes still stood out in their fey manner in his pale face, and although post-Hogwarts Harry was quicker to laugh, there was a slightly melancholic shadow in them that was not present during their last few years at school. Ron's train of thought was broken when his friend pushed his glasses up his sweaty nose and glanced at him from under his dark shock of hair.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked. 'You're looking at me the way Trelawny looks at her crystal ball."

"Sorry, my inner eye was clouded," Ron said, in a familiar misty voice. "On that note, beware of Longbottom's bearing invitations."

Harry groaned, finally looking up at him. "Already? Really? I don't have the slightest clue what to get them—what do you give two people that couldn't be more different?"

"I dunno. Been thinking the same think myself. I've concluded that I may possibly get my dad to get me two of those tourists passes for muggle London. Y'know, they get them in for free to all the main attractions, museums, art galleries—I figure Neville will enjoy the muggle stuff, and Luna can wear the pamphlets as a hat."

"Don't be mean," Harry said, but Ron could tell he was trying not to laugh. "Luna would never wear a museum map as a hat. Braid it into a necklace, maybe."

Ron grinned, his response interrupted by a paper airplane that came whooshing through the open door and prodding itself insistently at the back of Harry's head. Annoyed, he turned around and swatted it to the floor, but not before it managed to poke at his glasses a few times. "What the bleeding hell is going on with these memos? They're so vicious lately," Harry said, bewildered, as he retrieved the now inert note from under his boot. "Must be a reflection on the new minister."

"Yeah," suggested Ron darkly. "The result of magic and micro-management, I suppose."

Harry read over the note quickly and went to the fireplace, speaking directly to it. "Department of Magical Transportation, Floo Network Authority, MacMillan, please." At first, it appeared that the fireplace would remain empty, when a spark filled the grate and suddenly a blue flame crackled merrily in its place. Harry looked pained over the additional heat within his vicinity. "Ernie says there've been some suspicious movements caught by the Floo monitors, something about patterns. Says he thinks I should hear this."

Ron viewed Harry in his surroundings—this was when Harry was at his fiercest; when there was the possibility of something to _do. _The burgundy walls of the office were covered with maps: maps of wizarding London, muggle London, the boroughs of England, Ireland, and Scotland. Soft blue pulses of light radiated on certain areas of these maps, indicating the residences both of accused Voldemort sympathizers, acquitted Death Eaters, and the use of Forbidden Magic on a scale that could be detected by their wards. Ron saw Harry tug anxiously on the sleeve of his striped sweater, a residual habit of his Hogwarts days, or possibly, Ron thought sadly, his cupboard days.

Ron rolled his eyes, "Probably some illegal shipping of mallosweet, nothing he should be troubling us with." As soon as he had finished speaking however, Ernie's head appeared in the grate, his pale face tinted blue behind the flames.

"Harry," Ernie said, with some resignation. "Something's going on. Something inexplicable."

"Spit it out, Ernie," Harry said, with the patience of someone who had been left out of the loop one-too-many times. "What's the problem?"

"First," the man in the fire said quietly. "Take a look at the map of the known and suspected dark magic sympathizers behind you." Harry, startled, turned around. His face became an unflattering shade of ash-grey as he walked closer, peering. Ron was floored.

"Harry," he said, with some impatience. "Nothing's changed. They're all still where you left them at the beginning of the week." But Harry didn't look over at him.

"Half of these dwellings…" Harry croaked, his voice a harsh whisper. "More than half are glowing dimmer, pulsating less." He spun around, looking at Ernie. "You've been monitoring the floo? Is that what this is about? Where have they all gone?"

Before Ernie could answer, Ron interrupted. "What d'you mean, where have they all gone? What does it mean that they're glowing less?" He felt extremely confused, and somehow, colder. "What's wrong Harry?"

"They know they're monitored," Harry replied hollowly. "But these maps work by detecting the presence of pure-blood lines. They continue to glow as long as one member of the bloodline is living in that dwelling."

"You mean, it's possible that..."

"The heads of these families are gone. They're no longer living at the assigned addresses." The closer Ron looked, the more he could see what Harry was talking about. At one point, the glow from these maps could have illuminated Harry's face as a three-foot distance. And now, they barely cast their light. "How could I not have noticed?" Harry asked, muttering more to himself than anyone.

"—maybe they're on vacation," Ron suggested.

"ALL of them? AT THE SAME TIME?" Ernie burst out, finally, glaring daggers at him. "Don't be daft."

"Ernie," Harry said quickly, not giving Ron a chance to retort. "Tell me everything you know."

* * *

The library was an architectural statement. The long, vaulted ceiling had to have been charmed to sparkle as pristinely as it did, and through the echoes in the stacks around her, she felt the vibrations of thousands of years of magical academia at her disposal. Behind her, at the end of the hall, following yards and yards of purple, plush carpeting was a large, pinnacled glass door covered with eight feet of intricate Saxon knot-work. To enter it, all she needed to do was gingerly touch the tip of her wand to the pentagon-shaped lock at the close of the two gates. lo.b

"_Adaequatio rei et intellectus_," she murmured. "_Alohomora._"

As the very gates seemed to shimmer and disappear before her, she looked up. Thousands upon thousands of scrolls were yellowing and seemingly falling apart, their feathery, ancient edges fluttering in a breeze she couldn't feel.

Hermione looked at the little scrap of paper in her hand, and determinedly back up. "Circa 845 AD, Gregory the Bright, _Arythmtykal Observations_. Circa 1003 AD, unknown Arithmancer_, De Jure, De Facto_. Circa 1231, Marquis Partio DePlume, _Numbers Non-Sequiter…_" and as she spoke, the fragile, thousand-year old parchments drifted down slowly, into her waiting hands.

She gingerly carried the parchments back to the long table she had been situated at for hours. The table itself was claw-footed, and a mahogany so polished, she could see her reflection in it if she tried. Not that she wanted to, she thought. The weeks of research had taken a toll on her sleeping routine and stress level, which in turn lead to a ghastly pallor she didn't want to pause to think about. Jabbing a quill into her hair, she sighed. After her deadline was up next week, she would definitely take a long bath. Perhaps she could acquire some essence of the Adonis flower, and maybe Haemanthus root, known for their benefits to human skin. She quelled her daydreams bitterly, and set to work.

The arithmancy before her was dizzying. Pages upon pages of numbers blurred her vision, so much so that if she closed her eyes, she could see the digits dance behind her eyelids. Using an _Admoveo_ charm, Hermione set to arranging to scrolls around her, so that the three of them hovered eerily before her face, allowing her to cross-reference as was needed.

Hermione was currently working on completing her thesis in Advanced Arithmancy, in which she undertook the task of translating the patterns of known magical numeric serials, and comparing them to ancient druidian rumenology, to follow up on a hypothesis the great arithmancer Gregory the Bright left unfinished. So far she was successful, but she would need to have it fact-checked and peer-reviewed. Her first instinct was to go to Professor Vector, the most brilliant arithmancer she'd ever known personally, but that was an obvious negative; Vector was her thesis advisor.

No, thought Hermione, pulling the quill from her hair, heavy curls tumbling about her shoulders. No, that won't do. But she did know who would—the only other qualified academic on the subject who would do her a favour. She pulled out a piece of parchment and began to write a letter, a smile on her face.

* * *

He was sitting at the family dinner table at the Burrow, pouring over scrolls of parchment that had archaic ministry regulations etched onto them, Arthur Weasely looking grim as he consulted a Spreadscroll of data before him. For weeks, Sirius had been aiding the patriarch of the Weasely family and recently-appointed Chief of the Department for Ethical Equality in Magical Beings. Although this was a new department, it was one that was being taken quite seriously. In the advent of the fall of the Dark Lord, England was taking a closer look at archaic laws that marginalized and oppressed various magical people and creatures, such as Squibs, House-Elves, and Registered Werewolves. Arthur Weasely was put in charge of proposing new ways to amend these statutes, in a manner that guaranteed equality between Wizards and non-Wizards alike.

"Did you get a chance to go over the precedent case study of the original reasons for founding the Werewolf Registry Sirius? The one that requires them to be tagged, not the other one."

The thought of werewolves made the corner of his mouth twitch. _Remus_. He could remember so clearly, fifth-year Remus, pale and determined not to shake, showing Sirius the serial number on the back of his white thigh. 643. He closed his eyes.

"Sirius?" Came the concerned voice of Arthur. "Are you okay?"

"Er—yes." Sirius replied. "Just zoned off for a moment there Arthur. Sorry about that. Yes, I did, and—"

"Sirius," said Arthur kindly. "I know." His pale blue eyes wrinkled at the corners, and suddenly Sirius knew he _did_ know.

_How, _he was about to ask, quite dizzy, when the voice of Ginny Weasely sliced through the silence the kitchen. She stormed in, opened the cupboard, and slammed a coffee mug on the counter. Beside her, the kettle was bellowing, "_About time you lazy brat!_"

"Ginny, you know better than to—" Arthur said sharply, but was interrupted by his daughter's narrowed eyes.

"Your son," she said, and suddenly Sirius was reminded of a much younger, much more attractive Molly, "is the most emotionally incapable, most stunted man I've ever had the displeasure of knowing and I refuse to believe we were raised in the same home!"

"Hmm," murmured Arthur, amused eyes turning on Sirius, who was grinning. "I wonder who she could be talking about? I only have six of them, did you know?"

"You don't say," Sirius said, smiling innocently over the rim of his teacup.

Sirius looked at Ginny, who was determinedly pouring her tea. She was certainly one of the loveliest girls Sirius had ever seen; long tousled red hair that complimented her better than it did say, Ron, and large brown eyes that alerted her company to the fact that she was even tougher than she was pretty, and that was saying something.

Fred Weasely entered the kitchen in that moment. "Ah," said Arthur. "I had suspected as much."

"Sirius, you're well versed in the ways of women," Fred said, leaning on the counter as Arthur choked on his tea. "I appeal to you."

"I solemnly swear to do my best then, Fred," he replied, while Arthur reached for a napkin. Fred was as handsome as his sister, Sirius thought, noting the way his t-shirt stretched across his chest and shoulders, muggle blue jeans casually slung around his slim hips. "What seems to be this…woman-trouble?"

"He's an archetypal male and doesn't know he wants something until it's gone, so he—"

"Actually," Fred said, annoyed, interrupting his sister. "It's slightly more complicated than that. Do you know Angelina Johnson?"

"She plays for Tutshill Tornados, Chaser, correct?" Sirius asked, recalling the tall black girl with the braids down to the middle of her back. Sirius had seen her picture in the Daily Prophet a few weeks ago, smiling widely with the rest of her team. He knew that she was in Gryffindor with Harry, but that was the extent of his knowledge about her. They were finalists in the British League, against the Wimbourne Wasps; the final game was in three days. Sirius had already planned to be at Grimmauld Place with Harry and some of his friends, watching the game on Pay-Per-Floo and drinking mulled mead.

"Yes," said Fred distractedly. "Anyway, me and her were practically best mates at school y'see. Did everything together. I took her to the Yule Ball in sixth year, but that's about as romantic as we got. Well, there was that one night before we dropped out—" he paused, a dreamy look coming across his face.

"Ahem," said Arthur.

"Right, anyway. So I actually haven't seen her for a few years, and then she comes into the shop last week. She looked…fantastic. I mean, she was alright before, but now…she's got these…_curves_…"

"Argh," Ginny said, tossing her hair over her shoulder and kicking the kitchen door open.

"So I tell George I'm going to go out for a coffee with Angie, catch up, y'know," he continues, unfazed by the door that is now hanging on one hinge, squeaking pathetically. "And at first I can't get over how fantastic she looks, but then I say something funny and she smiles, this…_gorgeous_ smile, and bam, it hits me, like…this bird is incredible. I didn't realize how much I had missed her until then."

"Sounds fabulous," says Sirius dryly, draining his tea. "What's Ginny upset about then?"

"I'm getting to that," Fred said, apparently not concerned by the stacks of paper work surrounding his father and Sirius. He moved to rummage through the pantry, drawing out a loaf of bread. Pulling out a knife, he _accio_ed some butter and continued. "So Angelina tells me the recruiter for Fitchburg Finches, the American all-star team, came up to her and asked her to play for them in Massachusetts, and they're giving her a bloody sum of money."

"So…?" Arthur asked. This was the first time Sirius had seen him show interest in the conversation. "That's fantastic!"

"So," and here Fred took a deep breath, wiping a crumb from the corner of his mouth. "So…I'm thinking of telling her I love her and that I want her to stay in the U.K. so we can be together." Sirius and Arthur stared. Gnomes rustled in the garden. "And that's what Ginny's upset about. She thinks I'm being selfish and impetuous."

"You are," said Arthur with some finality. "What makes you think she even wants to have a relationship with you?"

"Well, I know she had a pretty big crush on me at Hogwarts. And something about the way she looked at me when we were having coffee…I can tell she feels the same way."

"So let me get this straight," said Sirius, rubbing at his temples. "She's possibly been in love with you at school, she shows up to tell you she's leaving and for a lot of money, and because she's grown all these womanly…crevices, you've decided it would be fair to make her choose between the possibility of being happy with you and a sure thing like fame and money in America?" Sirius sighed. "Sorry my boy, but 'selfish' and 'impetuous' are pretty good descriptive words in this situation."

Arthur made a noise of consent. Fred looked like someone had dumped a cauldron of dragon eggs on him. "You think?"

But whatever reply Sirius would have made was cut off by an owl gliding through the open window of the kitchen, the sunlight caught on its wings. "That's Dante," Arthur said cheerfully. "Remus' owl." As it landed before him, Sirius realized with a jolt that it was Remus' owl.

Fred reached over to feed the elegant, dark owl a piece of bread. It hooted softly. "Smart bird," said Arthur, stroking its glossy back. "Remus told me it's one of the few owls that isn't afraid of him."

But Sirius was reading. "What's it say?" Fred asked, not looking any less forlorn. It was obvious he had things to think about now.

_Dear Sirius, _

_I know I've not kept in touch recently, but I've been water-logged with tea and large, valuable books here in Narbefontaine. The French wizards certainly enjoy life, but they expect me to translate these texts so quickly, as if I turned into a Frenchman every full moon. I guess my last name is misleading. Needless to say, research is going well and I'll be finishing up in a few days. _

_I'm writing you to know that I'll be home sooner than expected, but I'll be coming straight into London. Hermione has written me to ask if I could peer-review her thesis (fascinating stuff, Drudian Runes and their parallels to Arithmancy and Magical Numerolgy, but I can hear you yawning already, so I'll just stop writing now). I'm meeting her in Diagon Alley this Sunday, and was probably going to stop by Grimmauld Place afterwards, if you'll be around. It'd be nice to catch up._

_Let me know. I miss you, old friend. Send my regards to Harry, and of course to the Weaselys. _

_Yours, _

_Remus. _

_Yours._ Sirius closed his eyes and swallowed. "He's going to be in London in two days. He'll be stopping by the Burrow at some point, I assume. He sends his regards."

Arthur looked at him wearily. "Sirius—"

"Now that Lupin is an odd bloke," Fred said, through a mouthful of bread. "Devilishly handsome academic type, cardigans and all, he's a werewolf so he's got that dangerous bad-boy thing birds dig. Why is he still single, I wonder?"

Sirius groaned and put his head down on the table, suddenly very tired. Arthur placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"You and Remus have a lot of catching up to do. Perhaps it would be wise if this time," Arthur said, standing up and placing a hand on his back, "you leave nothing unspoken."

* * *

"Why," Ron demanded, a pained look on his face. "_Why_ do we have to speak with him? I'm sure there are more than enough wizards working in his department that could serve us just as well, if not better." Ron flopped into the chair behind his desk, drumming his fingers absent-mindedly on the table. "Unless you secretly fancy it when he insults my family or makes fun of your dead parents, or—"

"Ron," Harry corrected kindly, smiling at his old friend. "He's not fifteen anymore. I'm sure he hates us as much as he's always hated us, but the fact remains that he'll most definitely have at least grown a semblance of manners. So no baiting him."

"But he's evil," Ron said blankly. "Say what you want, he's still a pure-blooded supremacist who'd help an old muggle woman off a cliff with a smile and a shove."

"That's possible," Harry said, hesitantly. Try all he might, he could never get Ron to just let things go, to leave well enough alone. Although the majority of wizarding England read the headlines of the Daily Prophet in the weeks following the fall of the Dark Lord, it seemed that Ron Weasely was the exception. Lucius Malfoy had commited suicide two nights before his sentencing at the Wizengamot; Draco wasted no time opening the doors to Malfoy Manor to what seemed like the entire population of the auror's department. Whatever they didn't confiscate, he sold. Narcissa was still a resident of the Manor, but after effectively testifying against Lucius during his arrest, was merely subjected to the confinement of her home for one year. A luxury more than a punishment, thought Harry wryly, to anyone who'd seen the Manor.

"And his family's all nuts, who knows how many double-faces that ferret has? Lucius' wife was clinging all over him one day, and ripping his spleen out before the judges the next day," said Ron vehemently. "You can't trust that sort of madness."

"No, but I trust that Malfoy is enjoying his life, sans-Lucius," Harry replied absently, remembering a Spreadscroll of data he wanted to show Malfoy when he got here. Reaching into his drawer, he added, "isn't he at a different party every night? Ambassador to the Eastern European ministries is quite a jet-set life. I reckon he's content not being Voldemort's squeeze toy."

Ron was mumbling under his breath. Yanking at a piece of ginger hair that was curling near his ear, he said viciously, "Yeah, now he keeps company with vampires and banshees, appropriate given that he looks like a piece of chalk."

"Actually," drawled a voice from behind Harry, and he saw Ron look up sharply. "You'll find that not all vampires match their descriptions in our Defense textbook." Draco Malfoy had poked his head out of an office door they had just passed, blonde hair falling in his eyes as he stared out at them. "Not that I would expect you to know anything about diffusing stereotypes, Weasely." He gave them a bland smile, and ducked his head back in.

"Did that git just talk to me about stereotypes? Is he fucking with me?" Ron whispered angrily, colour rising in his cheeks. "Harry let's just get out of here—"

"Ron, shut up," said Harry, not unkindly. "Please. This won't take long." Without looking backwards at his gaping friend, Harry pushed the door opened and entered the office.

One thing that could be said about the ministry was how well it concealed itself behind closed doors. Although Draco's door matched every door along the hall without any distinguishing features, the inside of the office was awash in splendor that must have been unique to Malfoy tastes.

"Like the décor?" He asked without looking up from what he was writing. "Benefits of being an ambassador I suppose. You get more furniture and priceless knick-knacks than you know what to do with." He stopped writing and looked up at Harry. "McGonagall's birthday is coming up, and a Romanian tycoon gave me a vampire-tooth necklace. Think the old girl will like it?" He reached into his drawer and pulled out the most menacing looking necklace Harry had ever seen. The teeth clicked against each other sinisterly.

"Looks like a Borgin & Burkes nightmare sale item," Harry grimaced.

"Hey. I spent some of my finest Christmases shopping in that store."

"I don't doubt that. Regardless, I think McGonagall would find some way of deducting one million points from Slytherin."

Draco frowned. "True. Oh well. I'll have to find some other recipient for the accursed thing." Sliding his drawer shut and standing up, he came forward to gesture at the leather chair in front of his desk. "Have a seat Potter. What can and I do for you? And where is your speckled accomplice? Didn't feel like facing big, bad Malfoy just yet?"

Sitting down, Harry clasped his hands together and glared at the lean blonde before him. "In all fairness, Malfoy, he has every reason in the world to hate you. As do I. You were a complete fucking arsehole in school."

"Correction," Malfoy pointed out softly, eyes narrowed. "I'm still an arsehole. Now talk."

An hour later, Harry was leaning on Malfoy's desk, pouring over the maps that the wizard had laid out before him.

"Here," Malfoy said, tapping his elegant ivory wand against the parchment and watching it glow green, "is what you could consider to be the Knockturn Alley of downtown Sofia. Durmstrang students are forbidden to visit during the school year. It is purely commercial, with no residential areas save for a few lofts above some stores."

"Can we safely assume the owners live there?" Harry asked, looking up at Draco.

"Well, not safely," he smirked, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a silver cigarette case, from which he withdrew a single short cigarette. Harry noticed the Malfoy family crest etched into the front; serpents and dragons ensnared by an age-old banner. "You're not supposed to smoke in the ministry, Malfoy."

"Oh?" Draco looked up with limpid, surprised eyes, and he said with an angelic voice, "oh no, I'll be sure not to smoke this then." Lighting the smoke and exhaling through his nose like a dragon, he used his wand to gesture to another part of the map. "Moving on. You could consider this part, here," he said, pointing to an area a distance from the city, "the equivalent to the area of ancestral properties that Malfoy Manor, for example, resides in. The oldest Bulgarian families live here, and unlike us here in the jolly west, having ancient blood almost ensures your participation in some form of dark magic."

Harry removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly as Draco continued to tap his wand to the map, until it became colour-coded in various shades of green and silver. Varying shades of green indicated levels of known dark activity, while the silver outlines described areas that were benign.

Draco, seeing Harry weariness, leaned his hip against the desk and stared at him. "Potter. One thing you should know about Eastern Europe in general." Stubbing out his cigarette, he said around a slow exhalation of smoke, "it's not so black and white over there. The edges between good and evil are not defined as they are here. Dark magic, what we would consider to be the forbidden art, does not exist there the way it exists here. There is no distinction between good magic and bad magic—only between what that magic could cost you, and the price you are willing to pay." He rolled up the map and handed it to Harry. "You've been warned."

Harry stood and took the map. "Thanks Malfoy. I appreciate your…observation. I'll be sure to keep it in mind. I'm going to get this map to my office and see if Hermione could use some sort of charm to translate the movement of the bloodlines."

"Granger, eh?" Malfoy said with some amusement, taking his grey wool cloak off the back of his chair. "I've seen her around a bit. She's looking alright these days."

"Don't go there Malfoy," Harry growled, jabbing a finger in the blonde's direction. "If you say so much as one word about Hermione I'll hex your symmetrical bloody face into a jigsaw puzzle."

Draco merely lifted one eyebrow, unaffected. "Touchy. Have you told her yet, then?"

Harry froze. "Told her what?"

The other wizard rolled his eyes. In a sweeping gesture, he brought the cloak over his shoulders and fastened it with an emerald pin. The material was so heavy Harry could hear it fall against Malfoy's back. "I see. Well, far be it from me to try to sort out the love life of the Hero of England. Floo me if you require any further assistance with your project."

With that, the heavy door closed behind him, and Harry was left in his slightly eerie office, wondering if Malfoy had taken a cunning guess, or if Harry was as transparent as he feared he was.

* * *

Meanwhile in Diagon Alley, Hermione was waiting outside the Owl of Minera coffee shop, her favourite haunt, for Ginny. It was a crisp winter's afternoon, the kind that bleached the cobblestone road with salt, barren of snow. The sun was so bright that it caught in her reflected breath before her face, and the streets on either side of her were drenched in gold light. It was her favourite time of day.

She picked absent-mindedly at the fluff on her navy-blue winter cloak, regretting her choice in fur-lining. Not only was she annoyed about the wizarding-worlds distinct lack of faux-fur alternatives, but she always looked messy as well.

Ginny was ten minutes late. Just when Hermione was ready to pull out her book and bury her nose in it, she heard a familiar voice calling over to her.

"Put that book down, Granger," Ginny said merrily, coming through the crowds, her hair a bright beacon through the grey mist. "I'm here. I'm so sorry I'm late!"

Hermione smiled, somewhat jealous of youngest Weasely's sharp beauty. "It's alright love. Did Seamus hold you up?" She thought of Seamus Finnegan, with his freckles to rival Ginny's and sandy-blonde hair. His Irish lilt and smile captured the attention of many women, but of course he was drawn to Ginny.

Ginny blew some hair out of her dark eyes. "I guess you could say that. We just broke up."

"_What?!_" Hermione cried, grabbing the girl by her shoulders. "_What happened? Why?_"

Ginny smiled and walked past her, her white cloak trailing behind her. She opened the door to the Owl and gestured inside. "I'll fill you in over a latte. Come on."

The interior of the Owl was one preferred by the artistic types of the Wizarding community. Classic wizarding tales and titles lined the creaky book shelves of the candelabra-lit café, and abstract artworks hung-salon style on its high walls. Music drifted from the wireless, with such bands as Florence & the Cauldron, the Herbologists, and Architecture in Avalon. The patrons all favoured strange haircuts and odd cardigans, and conversations about art, contemporary literature and advancements in sustainable potion-making ingredients filled the room. Hermione adored it.

Once they had taken their seats on the mismatched wooden chairs, a waitress with a short blonde haricut and bright-red lipstick came over to them. Her fingers were filled with rings, and below her collar bones she had tattooed a raven, with the words 'a fonte puro pura defluit aqua.' "Hi Hermione, hi Ginny," she said in her clear Canadian accent. "What can I get you beautiful ladies today?"

"Always the flirt, Simone. I'll have a latte with a shot of pumpkin spice. Extra foam," Ginny said. Simone winked at her and turned to Hermione. "The usual love?" she asked.

"Please." Hermione smiled, blushing.

"I don't understand why you come to a place where the waitress continually makes you uncomfortable," Ginny laughed, whispering quietly as the blonde sashayed away. "You look like a tomato."

"She doesn't make me uncomfortable," Hermione protested, covering her cheeks with her cold fingers. "I'm just not used to women flirting with me, that's all. Anyway, don't try to change the subject. _What happened_?"

"Oh, I've just been unhappy for a while. Seamus was great but there has never been any chemistry and you know that. I brought it up with him today after a particularly passive-aggressive row and he didn't disagree. And that was that." The pretty redhead shrugged, and picked at something in the corner of her eye. "I'm not all torn up about it, as you can see. Besides, we only dated for six months."

"That's still a long time," Hermione said quietly, not meeting Ginny's eyes. Hermione had yet to get involved with anyone for longer than a few months at a time. She always met brilliant and intellectual men that managed to stimulate her, but after a few months at the most things would fizzle out and she would find herself alone again. Alone, and strangely, more than content.

Ginny, knowing this, covered Hermione's hand with hers. "You'll get there, Hermione."

Hermione nodded and smiled tightly at Simone who placed their drinks in front of them. The smell of her favourite tea (bourbon vanilla) was comforting. She titled her head and looked at Ginny. "Harry's going to be over for Christmas, you know," she said as she traced the rim of her cup nervously.

Ginny looked at her cooly through the steam of her coffee. "And?"

"Well, you're single now, and—"

"Hermione," Ginny snapped, in a whisper, colour blossoming on her cheeks. "I don't know what more I need to say to convince you that I am not interested in Harry and he is not interested in me. We have no chemistry, either. I love him dearly, but I am not attracted to him like that anymore. We had a weird thing in school, but that was yonks ago and besides, we both agreed we didn't want to be involved. _So why do you keep prodding?_" The last words came out in a hiss. Hermione avoided her gaze, abashed.

When she looked up at her, Ginny was looking at her with an odd light in her eyes and a smile was growing slowly over her pink lips. "What?" Hermione said, bewildered. "_What?_"

"Oh Merlin," she said, and now she was grinning. "You're in love with him!"

Hermione almost overturned her cup. "I am not in love with him," she whispered furiously. "I don't know why you'd say that Ginny but it's certainly—"

"Oh. My. Goddesses. Yes you _are_!" Ginny squealed with delight and clapped her hands. "That's why you're always asking me if I want to get together with him again, and that's why you've always been happy to be Harry's friend and not anyone's girlfriend. That's why you've never liked any of his girlfriends!"

Hermione was glaring at her cup, mouth pinched into a tight line.

"Hermione, you're a brilliant fucking witch," Ginny said, touching her hand. "But you can't lie for shit."

Hermione looked up at her with eyes shining with unshed tears. "Please don't tell anyone. Our friendship would be ruined."

"Oh darling," Ginny said, suddenly feeling very guilty. "Oh sweetheart. No, I won't tell anyone. I'll keep your secret. But—"

"But what?! You just promised—"

"I was going to say," Ginny interrupted softly, looking at her earnestly. "That maybe you should tell him."

Hermione laughed out loud, a barking, cold laugh that Ginny had never heard before. "Tell him? That's priceless Ginny. He's dated beautiful witches, including you, who are all sexy and interesting and can banter and probably do amazing things with their tongues. What would you have me say? 'Harry dear I know I'm very plain and actually quite boring and you've found me as sexually stimulating as a head of cabbage these past few years, but what do you say we have a go at it?'" She laughed again, tears falling properly now. "He'd distance himself from me so quickly. I couldn't take it."

Ginny held her tongue. What could she say to her? She had no proof, but she knew that Harry wouldn't take her admittance of her feelings the way Hermione was imagining. In fact she was pretty sure that somewhere buried in that platonic friendliness, Harry never felt alone when he was with Hermione.

_You'll see Hermione_, Ginny thought, stroking her hand comfortingly as she made soothing noises at the silently crying girl. _You'll see, you brilliant witch. You understand theories and connections that would make my head spin, but you're too afraid to understand this._

* * *

_Moony, _

_Glad to hear that you'll be coming home soon, albeit for an incredibly boring reason. (I mean I love Hermione but druidian rumenology, COME ON) Anyway, I'll be at Grimmauld when you arrive—what would you like to eat? Let's go down to Mum India like we used to, although ownership has changed and the woman that served us extra helpings of naan is possibly long dead._

_Will you be staying until the moon? Yours,_

_Padfoot _

Sirius surveyed his handiwork and frowned. Biting down on the edge of the quill, he made a quick edit.

_Will you be staying until the moon? Yours, _

_Your Padfoot_

With a gulp of air, Sirius rolled up the parchment and attached it to Circe, who took off with a friendly nip at his tattooed fingers. She left the window sill, and Sirius watched her until she became merely a speck in the half-full orange moon, a knot of dread and anticipation curling in his stomach.

* * *

"So what did Malfoy have to say?" Ron was crumpled into an over-stuffed chair in Harry's flat, watching him with dancing blue eyes. "Loads of advice on how to catch and torture small children and kittens I'll reckon. I heard a rumor that he has Filch's shackles hanging in his office."

"Actually, no," Harry said, somewhat distracted as he was losing magnificently to Ron in yet another round of wizards chess. Ron's rook had just impaled his sword through Harry's bishop, and was now doing an obscene dance on his horse. "Who gave you this chess board anyway," Harry grumbled.

"Christmas gift from Fred and George," Ron said, impatiently waiting for his next move. Harry was certain he had already cornered him several moves ahead. It was always only a matter of time. "Anyway, go on, what did the belligerent git have to say?"

"He was actually really helpful," Harry said with some hesitation. "He was very thorough in his assessment of dark magic in Bulgaria. Now it's only a matter of time in creating the charm that's going to help us determine if our missing heads of households are holing up anywhere in Bulgaria. Hermione said she'd stop by later to help."

"Hrmph," grumbled the redhead. "And if they're not there?"

"Then we'll have to invite Malfoy into the strategy room so he can make up maps for the rest of the countries in the Eastern Wizarding Union, until we find them."

"_What?!_" spluttered Ron, through a mouthful of Elfin Beer. "Invite the spitey sodding smarmy twat into the strategy room? Have you lost your mind? He'll get too confident, start cozying up to you for information about the New Order, deliver it to—"

"Deliver it to whom, Ron?" Harry interrupted, at this point quite fed up. The chess board went ignored as the pieces tried to get their attention with further inappropriate gestures. "The dead dark lord? His dead father?"

"You never know!"

"Ron, can you just let it go? I know he was a wanker in school but he's a valuable asset to us in this project. He knows the wizarding areas of all the countries high on our suspect list like the back of his bloody hand!"

"Yeah, the entire continent is amuck with dark magic, I wonder fucking why!"

"Ron," Harry said with a strained voice, running his hands through his unruly hair. "_He's innocent_. He doesn't give a fuck about what his father or mother wanted him to be. He's a free man now, and from what I understand, he's rolling in plenty of money, so what interest could he have in the dark arts anymore? And, since you're so willing to forget this fact, _we made him take a Veritiserum potion during the trail._" He sighed. "I understand your families have had a feud for centuries but can you please, just until we figure out where these wizards have gone, retain a shred of trust?"

Ron was silent, and Harry watched him. Ron was more than a brother to him, he was like a brother that Harry _chose_ to have, and he hated more than anything when they had disagreements like this. He could see the cogs in Ron's head turning, and he addressed his thoughts before Ron had a chance to speak.

"It's not that I don't trust your intuition. I do," Harry said quietly. Rain splattered against the window sill. "It's that I have to make a judgment on Malfoy's character, and it's between your…granted, reasonable…hatred of him, and what he said under a truth serum at the trail. Do you understand?"

Ron took a sip of his beer and looked at Harry. "So why are we so sure that they've all fucked off to Bulgaria?"

Harry sat back, feeling that Ron's anger had ebbed. "Well, you were there when Ernie told us. They tracked the floo records to show that they all departed through the international floo hub, and chose the EWU connection. However, when we contacted the officials at the Union's central location in Sofia, they informed us that without proving that these men are criminals, it would be illegal for them to disclose where the men flooed to from there. They would have most likely gone by broom after that."

"And they were acquitted at the trail, so…"

"Yeah," Harry said, rubbing his eyes. "Yeah. And the EWU connection has connections to a shit load of capital cities…Sarajevo, Warsaw, Moscow, Bucharest, Budapest…the list goes on."

"So why did you ask Malfoy about Bulgaria?" Ron asked, blinking.

"Because like I said, the main connection is in Sofia, Bulgaria. Figured I'd start there first and—" but Harry was interrupted by a light knock at the door. "That's probably our girl now." He rose quickly and went to the door. Ron followed, pulling his black cloak over his shoulders, his flame hair mussed beyond repair. His eyes had the droopy look of a person who'd consumed too much Elfin beer.

"Hermione," Harry said, opening the door and revealing his old friend teetering under the weight of several leather-bound books. "You really…need to stop apparating with such a heavy load. It's not good for you."

"Yes, well," she said irritably, "I figured we could get a head start instead of waiting until the library opened." She placed the books carefully on Harry's living room table. "Hi Ron. Off are you?"

"Yeah. Sorry Hermione, but I'm knackered. It takes a bit out of me to beat Harry at chess constantly."

"That's not true," she replied good-naturedly. "We both know it's not very hard to beat Harry at chess."

"Um, wow, thanks," Harry said, laughing. "You are such a nice girl sometimes."

"Plus I need to go home and talk to Fred, he's in a right strop about this whole Angelina business," Ron said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "I'm sure he wants to get drunk."

"You're lucky tomorrow is Saturday," Harry replied, taking Hermione's cloak.

"What Angelina business?" Hermione asked. If she were a cat her ears would have been raised curiously.

"He's in love with Angelina Johnson, didn't you know?" Harry winked at Ron.

"Oh brilliant, he's a bit late on that one, isn't he?" She shook her head. "Men are so dim-witted sometimes."

"Hey!" Harry and Ron protested in unison, but Hermione had moved past them to sit on the couch and promptly open one of the thicker, older books on the table.

"Yikes," Ron whispered conspiratorially, "have fun." And with a pop, he was gone.

* * *

Harry slept. And while he slept he dreamt.

_A familiar room swims into focus; he can't place where he's seen it before. Slate grey walls, a lone, grime-streaked window. A bed big enough for only a child sits unassumingly in the corner, it's feathered down stuffing floating softly in an intangible wind. The mattress isn't torn anywhere visible. A dresser, and a vibrant red chair that makes no sense to his dreaming brain._

_A muffled noise swims into audible focus around him, like shattering glass underwater. Suddenly he knows where his hands are—they are wrapped around something with a pulse—it beats faintly, and every beat sounds in tune to the rush of blood in his ears. The flesh is thin, cold. He feels the crack of bone beneath his fingers and then it is too real to him, what he is doing in this dream._

_The face of a young boy, heart-stopping in its horrifying familiarity, fills his vision. He's choking him—killing him. The pale skin turns grey, the large eyes lacking the innocence one his age should possess. The young boy smiles a ghost of a smile as the life leaves his eyes. He's dead, but Harry doesn't stop squeezing, like prodding at the embers of a long dead fire._

_Harry._

_Harry!_

"_Harry!" _

He jolts awake, and dark eyes are blinking worriedly at him. Her oval face is pale and she's biting her lip. "Harry?" she asks. "Are you alright?"

"I—fell asleep." He turns to the clock, but it reads an hour he cannot decipher through his blurry vision.

"You were whimpering."

Harry coughed. "Nonsense."

"You kept saying his name."

"Whose name?" he asks, although he's certain of the answer. Hermione looks away and pulls her curling dark hair into a messy bun behind her head, and Harry watches the elegant line of her bare neck. "Tom," she says simply. "You kept calling for Tom."

"Fuck," is all he says in response. "Yeah. I don't know what just happened." He stands up and stretches, makes his way to the kitchen, where he cups his hands under cold running water and promptly splashes it all over his face. He feels it dribble down his neck and under his shirt. He places his hands on the counter in front of him and looks hopelessly at the ceiling.

"I um," he begins, "dreamt I was murdering Tom Riddle. But as a child."

"Pardon?" Hermione says, following him to the kitchen, hugging her sweater closer around her. He knew that she probably had gooseflesh. Her brow is creased in concern.

"Remember when Dumbledore showed me his memory in the Pensieve, of the orphanage where he first came to collect Riddle? That's where I was in my dream. And at first I didn't know what I was doing, but I looked down and I saw that I was choking him on the ground. He wasn't struggling or fighting me…he just looked at me as I killed him." He turned to Hermione and smiled shakily. "Did I ever tell you how creepy Riddle was as a child?"

"This isn't funny Harry!" Hermione snapped, balling her small hands into fists. "It might mean something. Does your scar hurt?"

"Oh come off it Hermione, Voldemort's dead! We know he's dead. I know you know he's dead."

"I know," she conceded, biting her lip again. Harry was surprised that her lower lip wasn't constantly crusted in blood. "But…why have that dream now, years later, for no reason?"

"I don't know Hermione," he grumbled, turning away from her and opening a can of butterbeer. "My dreams don't always have to predict horrific events about some undead psychopath, sometimes they can just be reflections of unconscious desires or unrest."

Hermione blinked.

"I know things," Harry said, abashed. "I once skimmed through Dudley's psychology textbook when he went on hols."

"Indeed," she said, quietly. "You're right. I didn't mean to jump to conclusions." She pulled her oversized sweater tighter around her and worried at her nail with her teeth. Harry felt a rush of endearment towards his brilliant yet oft-paranoid friend. He curled a lock of her hair around his fingers and tugged playfully at it.

"So, did you have any luck after I fell asleep? I'm sorry I abandoned our research for my morbid dreams."

Hermione brightened, and snapped her fingers excitedly. "Actually yes! And research went faster after you fell asleep, you weren't constantly asking me to translate Latin for you." She went out to the couch and retrieved the book that she was pursuing as he was falling asleep. Her fingers were streaked with hardened layers of dust.

"I think I found an incantation that should make things a bit easier in making the transition from the bloodlines spelled into the British map to the Bulgarian map, and if it works, it should be easily transferrable to subsequent maps, should we need to make them." She paused, turning her eyes up to him. "The incantation is probably the same one that your father and the marauders used to create the map of Hogwarts."

Harry glanced at her, subdued. "Is that a fact?"

"Well, it would have made a lot of sense, and Remus suggested this book to me a few years ago when we created the map of the British Isles. So the connection is there. In fact—" she turned to him. "Do you have a piece of parchment? I'm going to write Remus asking him for his help again."

"Again?" Harry said, looking at the page in the tome that Hermione pointed out, trying to make heads or tails of it.

"Oh, I'm meeting him tomorrow because he's going to review my thesis proposal."

"Oh yes," Harry said looking up, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, things have been so crazy I haven't asked you how your endeavours into translating…er…"

"Druidian Rumenology," she supplied, a smile flitting across her lips. "I'm progressing. But I keep running into the same question, and it's proving to be an obstacle." She flopped down onto the couch behind her. She continued to speak about the subject that Harry had little interest in, and he took that time to assess her. Dark-ish circles underneath her usually clear eyes, slightly matted hair, ink stains on her hands and arms that looked days old, chapping lips—all these things indicated to Harry that something was troubling his friend, and it went beyond the mysteries of the druids. She wasn't sleeping, and from the looks of it, barely eating.

"…but when I cross referenced the use of the number nine in ancient Celtic cultures against their contemporaries in the near east, for example the mathematical revelations brought about during the Red dynasty in China—"

"Hermione," Harry interrupted, placing his hand over hers and noticing the jutting bone at her wrist. "Do you wanna grab some Indian food? My treat."

* * *

"Angelina, would you like to share with the rest of the class where the _fuck_ your head is today?!"

Angelina looked guiltily behind her as the coach of Tutshill Tornados glowered from his perch on his broom. He was a strongly built man, and his Scottish accent was thunderingly clear when he was upset. Today, she had missed several easy passes and managed to get hit by a bludger twice—by flying into their paths.

She flew towards the ground hard, not wincing when her sore feet hit the snow crusted in ice. Throwing her broom over her shoulder, she marched towards the change rooms, purposely ignoring the awkward silence that fell upon her teammates above her.

"What's this now? Angelina Johnson walking out on a practice? The last one before finals? Ho ho, well I've got a bulletin for you, you sassy cow!" McAdams flew his broom directly into her path and glared at her. "I don't know where your head is, lass, but I'll be eating it for supper if you don't get back on that broom and in the air."

"I'm sorry Travis, I'm just not on today—" she stopped walking. "We've been at this for the last six hours and it's dark. We're only supposed to be here for another 20 minutes and I'm not going to get my bearings together in that time. Will you please let me rest?" She looked at him imploringly.

The red tint to his cheeks and the vein in his forehead slowly disappeared. "Fine. But you'd best get it together in the next 48 hours Johnson. I don't know what's been eating at you, but I suggest you find a way to bury it before the finals. Understood?" With that, he turned on his heel and gestured to the rest of the players with a circular motion of his fist that the practice was over. Slowly, like leaves in the fall, the members of her team drifted down from the sky.

Angelina quickly moved towards the locker rooms to grab her bag and apparate, before anyone had a chance to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder and ask her concerned questions.

With a pop, she found herself before her apartment door. Dropping her bags with a sigh, she bent down to filch for the entry-object in her purse. As a professional quidditch player, it is suggested never to apparate directly into your apartment—rather, an enchanted entry-object (it could be anything; for instance, Angelina used an old barrette her mother had given her as a child) would detect any sort of malevolent presence behind the door and deny you access. It seemed extreme, but it had happened before that quidditch hooligans would deal with their frustrations by taking it out on the player who apparently caused it.

She could smell the odour radiating off her practice uniform and curled her lip in disgust. The first thing she would do once she stepped inside her fabulously warm apartment would be to peel off her clothes and take a long bath in her custom-made onyx bird-footed tub, she thought with pleasure.

"Angelina?" A tentative, too-familiar voice interrupted her as she touched her barrette to the door. It shimmered briefly and disappeared. She turned to the voice and her shoulders slumped. The last person she wanted to see smelling like an exploded hag's wart.

"Fred," she said, eyebrows raised. "How'd you know where I live?"

"I—" he looked briefly panicked at her abrupt greeting. "I ran into Katie and I asked her. Is this…er, a bad time? I can just go." He pointed to the stairs which he had just climbed, a slow flush spreading across the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, no," she said quickly, smiling and stepping through her door. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to take the wind out of your sails. I was just surprised and it's been a rough day. Come in Weasely, come in."

He followed her through her now non-existent door and watched as it flickered back into place behind him. "Blimey, I`ve always wondered if the rumors were true about those doors. What happens if you lose your thingy?"

"My thingy?" She asked with amusement, pulling off her sweatshirt. The beads at the ends of her braids clicked together noisily. "You mean my entry object?"

"It sounds so dirty when you phrase it that way," Fred replied with his usual shit-eating grin. Angelina paused when she saw him smile like that, because it was seven years of her life compiled into a half-second, a simple human reflex. That slap of a smile, completed by his chipped canine tooth, was enough to make her grow warm and cold all at once.

"I need to freshen up," she said matter-of-factly. "Can you entertain yourself with quidditch magazines for 20 minutes? There's beer in the fridge." He turned away from the vintage framed 1910 Holyhead Harpies poster on her wall and shrugged. "Sounds good to me," he replied, sliding his hands into the pockets of his muggle jeans. Angelina quickly left the room.

She showered quickly, all the while growing resentful. What exactly was he doing here? Didn't he realize that they hadn't spoken in years before she ran into him a week ago, and that he couldn't just slide himself back into her life now, like a key into a changed lock? She felt like he was prodding at the foundations of the new life she had worked so hard to build, to keep out the disappointment of the one before.

Moving into her attached bedroom, she found something flattering to slip into—a cream-coloured jersey shirt-dress with a drawstring waist and dipping collar—and dabbed some perfume behind her ears. She was about to turn from the room, when she found herself moving back towards her vanity to apply a little colour to her lips and to line her eyes.

_So much for trying not to give a fuck_, she thought sadly.

When she exited her bedroom, she found Fred with the promised beer in hand, but instead of flipping through her quidditch coffee-table books he was standing in the corner of the room that she had framed some of her favourite photographs in. She knew what he was looking for—pictures of himself—amidst pictures of her Quidditch team mates, family, friends (Katie, Alicia, Harry and Ron, Lee, even George). But he would only find one, if he could squint hard enough to see himself in it.

"I miss Hogwarts," she said quietly, coming up behind him. He jerked slightly, taken aback by her presence. He looked at her, his eyes lingering on her face and neck longer than necessary. She didn't look at him. "Which one do you like?"

He turned back to the wall after a moment, his mouth set in a hard line. "I like this one. I remember this moment perfectly."

So he had found it. It was so still, it could have been mistaken for a muggle photograph. It was taken by her only a few hours after the war had been declared over. It was a picture of the grand staircase at Hogwarts, and five figures were sitting on blocks of rubble. The only factor of the image that appeared to be moving was the dust that was still clearing around them. Alicia was in the foreground of the image, with Katie's arm slung about her shoulder. They were both covered in dirt and a little blood, but Alicia had her chin propped on her hand as if she was bored, and Katie had the smallest of smiles teasing the corners of her mouth. Both looked fierce and satisfied, survivors of a gruesome battle with the adrenaline of ancient magic running in their blood. Behind them, but still in focus, George and Lee Jordan were in conversation about something—she never found out what—and George was twirling his wand idly. Lee was bandaging his free arm, the result of a deep wound that remains a magnificent scar for George's collection.

In the background, slightly out of focus but the only one looking directly at her, was Fred. His legs were splayed in front of him, and his hands were clasped in his lap. He was alone, and even at that distance, she could see that he only continued to look blinkingly at her. Angelina kept this photograph because she felt as though it may have been the only moment in their seven years of friendship that she had his undivided attention.

"I remember exactly what I was thinking, too," he said, turning to her and giving her a significant look. She realized how close he was when she realized that she could see the flecks of green in his clear-blue eyes; it had been years since her eyes focused on that specific colour combination, and she felt like a small sixteen-year-old girl again. Gathering strength and ignoring whatever game he was trying to play at—_what, did he get bored all of a sudden and find a way to pass the time? Am I suddenly more attractive now that I've attained relative fame? _She walked over to the fridge and poured herself a glass of wine.

"Have a seat," she said, gesturing towards the couch. "I assume you came over to talk about something?" She moved towards her comfortable suede couch and curled her legs underneath her.

He didn't move, hands in still in his pockets, looking out at her from beneath his shock of red hair. "Actually," he began, "There's nothing in particular. I just thought we could catch up, hang out—we're old mates."

"I see," she said, somewhat coldly. "Old mates. Right."

"Am I…fucking something up here?" he asked quietly, draining his beer and joining her on the couch. He didn't sit too close, but his proximity was enough to heat her blood. She never thought she'd see the grown-up version of her first love again, and when she ran into him in Hogsmeade, it was like having two conversations—one with him and one with the panicking 16-year-old-girl she'd locked away in a broom closet all those years ago.

"I just…don't understand why you're here," she heard herself say, as if from a great distance.

Fred kept staring at her, searching her face, mouth slightly agape. "The part about being old mates didn't cover it?"

"But we hadn't spoken in almost five years Fred. And yeah, it was great to get that coffee when we caught up, but…I figured if you wanted to be friends again, you had plenty of opportunity before that. I must have sent you three owls in the year after the war, when you went back to Ottery St. Catchpole and I travelled to see my family in Barbados. I never heard back from you." She gestured vaguely with her hands, the wine swishing in her glass. It wasn't exactly what was pissing her off so much about his visit, but it was better than saying_ You had seven years to give me something back, and now you're asking people where I live, five years later? _"After not hearing back from you, I just assumed that you wanted to cut ties with your past and I tried not to question that."

"Angelina," he said, his hands slowly curling and uncurling into fists. His voice cracked on her name and she _almost_ felt bad for him. "I don't blame you for being upset with me for that. I remember where I was every single time I received those owls, and why I never replied. Will you let me explain? Please, Angie?" His use of her nickname hit her like a pile of bricks, and she slumped further into the couch.

"Of course."

"The first time I received your owl," he began, reaching for the wine bottle and refilling her glass, but not before taking a swig from the bottle first, "was a month after I last saw you, at the edge of the forbidden forest. Do you remember?" She nodded, watching her reflection in the dark wine.

"I was in the hospital. I had been cursed by a death eater in the battle, and the hex he put on me had residual effects. I woke up screaming in pain one night because it felt like by ribcage was collapsing onto my heart. My family rushed me St. Mungo's and I remained there for one month while they diagnosed me, healed me, and removed the curse from my body." At this point in the story, Angelina had her hands over her mouth in horror. "I received your owl on the second day of my stay there. By the time I was out, I was so full of counter-potions and sedation leaves I couldn't remember my middle name for days. I forgot about your letter."

"I had heard that you were hospitalized, but I had no idea, Fred I'm so sorry…"

"The second time I received your owl," he said, ignoring her sympathetic words, "it triggered my memory and I remembered your first one. I was testing out some new products for our line when I received it. In the second letter you wrote me and asked about the hospital. I sat down and wrote you back a huge letter; it must have been about 10 inches. I asked you about Barbados, about playing in the reserves, about your family, and I asked you to meet me when you came back." He sighed here, and ran his long, freckled hands over his face. "But, and George can vouch for this one, I left the letter to go to the back room to get a seal, which took a while because the stupider twin had rearranged the stock and it took me 20 minutes to find the bloody thing. When I came back to my work desk, I found that a good-sized fire from my over-simmering cauldron had consumed my table and burnt to ashes not only the letter it took me an hour to write, but the proto-types that had taken months to perfect." Angelina found herself covering her mouth yet again, but this time to hide the laughter that threatened to spill. Fred, ever-aware of her smile from years of causing it, wasn't fooled. "You think that's funny, don't you? You've always had a twisted sense of humor," he grinned. "Anyway, point is, by the time I cleaned up and George hexed me a new arsehole, the letter drifted to the backburner in a rush to re-make the prototype for the spring opening."

He stopped smiling here, and brought the wine bottle to his lips yet again. "I received your third letter four months after the second one and eight months after the first one. You were distinctly less friendly—I'd like to think it was your way of warning me that it would be the last one you send if you didn't hear back from me." She felt her lips twitch, and leaned her head against the side of the couch.

"I'm not proud of this. I'm just hoping you'll understand," he said quietly. "I was dating someone, at that point, and when I received your final letter she was at my flat with me. Things had begun to get a bit serious with her, and she was already narrowing my list of female friends I was allowed to talk to. Narrowing it to zero, that is. And when I explained who you were—" he poured her more wine and didn't look at her face once. "Well, let's just say that I didn't want to cause any trouble."

Angelina was quiet for a long time. "I take it you broke up with her?" She said finally, tracing the rim of her glass. The idea of some woman coming between her and Fred enraged her, but it was the better alternative to what she had originally been suspecting.

"Yeah—two years ago."

"You dated for a while then."

"We did," Fred crossed his arms across his chest in a familiar manner, then said quietly, "after it ended, I was so tempted to write you. But I figured you were probably really cross with me…I was just scared of your reaction. But when I ran into you, and it didn't seem like you hated me..." he trailed off, not meeting her eyes.

She smiled. "I was really upset after I wrote that last letter and didn't hear back. I won't lie."

"I know, I—"

"I got over it, though." She thought back to the weeks after she had written the final letter, to the nights spent drinking with Katie and Alicia and their constant reassurance that she should forget about him, about what a tosser he was anyway. The dull ache in her chest that she felt no matter what she did or where she went or how many games she won.

"Can I take you to dinner next weekend?" He asked, looking at her quickly. His eyes were bright, his fair lashes framing them against his pale skin, and she thought about how unfairly handsome he was, how the years had only sharpened his charismatic good looks.

"I don't know Fred," she said, mustering humor she didn't feel. "I'm a big quidditch star now, I don't think you could afford the kind of dining facilities I'm used to eating in. The luxury, the finery—"

What he did next surprised her. He sat forward and covered her hand with his. A slight smile teased the corner of his lips and he said with a voice that could only be deemed as husky, "just give me a chance."

Is he asking me on a date? The idea that Fred could have been suggesting more than a friendly outing made her stomach twist. But the way his eyes were lingering was so foreign to her—she was terrified and thrilled all at once.

"Yeah, all right then." She said, coolly. They both burst into laughter.

* * *

Ginny found running her own business easy. Selling wizarding clothing and jewelry that she had designed herself proved to be a lot simpler than everyone told her it would be. Newly out of Hogwarts, the witch found herself at a loss for a career path. She had done very well in all her advanced 7th year classes, but lacked the direction all her peers had. Auror, Healer, teacher, banker, ministry drone—none of these held appeal to her. She had always rued Hogwarts lack of education in creative magic.

But several things happened for her all at once. Being the only daughter of Molly Weasely, making an outfit out of hand-me-down boys clothes and her mother's more polished digs from 70s wasn't that much of a challenge—in fact, it turned into more of pleasure. So when Madame Malkin spotted Ginny sketching in her doodling pad more than 3 years ago, she suggested she enroll in adult night classes on sewing and designing magic.

It was in short order that Ginny graduated, and not only realized she could make clothes for other people, but that she had a passion for the way clothes could make witches look and feel. Borrowing some capital from the twins, she purchased a dumpy space in Diagon Alley, in an area that was quickly becoming known as a trendy hotspot for fashionable young witches.

Three years later, Ginny was paying the final installment of her loan back to her brothers, and was generating revenue in a manner that surprised even her. It was now odd to go a single day without seeing a witch wearing one of her designs, and the snobbiest of the rich Slytherin and Ravenclaw socialites were respectfully silent as she doled out her recommendations on what _she_ thought would best suit them.

She had a new flat, furnished and accessorized with an eclectic mix of vintage pieces from England, France and Germany, and splurged to have some staple items hand-crafted by one of the hottest furniture makers in London. It was rare that she would wear the same outfit twice in a month, and she took her mother out for bi-weekly spa dates and manicures, which mortified and pleased the older Weasely woman to no end. Ginny suspected she just liked the attention from her daughter.

She stepped outside her shop (which sported the simple title _Virginia_ in bold, capital letters) and wrapped her cashmere houndstooth shawl around her bare shoulders. She quickly pulled out a silver case and slipped a long cigarette out of it. Lighting it and inhaling with satisfaction, she saw a bright-haired figure coming down the empty Monday morning street through a plume of smoke.

She kept smoking, ignoring the tall man moving towards her. Tapping her heeled toe against the cobblestones, she began to think about the upcoming Spring season, and the line of ready-to-wear and evening dresses she'd soon be creating. The one thing that was harder than starting your own design line was keeping the creative juices flowing. She was definitely in a rut.

She was shaken from her train of thought by a deep voice.

"I didn't know you smoked, Weasely."

When she looked up, she was astounded to see Draco Malfoy casually smoking a cigarette, looking at her with careful eyes, his still unusually-fair hair windswept all over his head.

He had a charcoal-grey, heavy wool cloak wrapped around his shoulders, and his hands were clad in soft brown leather gloves. She looked to his feet, on which he sported the newest Dwarf2 loafers.

"See something you like?" he asked, when she didn't speak. The cigarette burned away between his fingers.

"I like your cloak," was all she said, flicking her own cigarette and pulling her shawl tighter.

"Yes, it is nice isn't it? I'd casually infer to the lack of style and sophistication that your clan possesses, but I don't think I can do it. You look fantastic, Weasely." He dropped his cigarette and crushed it beneath his heel. The wind had blown some colour into his cheeks, and he looked positively medieval. Ginny was disappointed. She would have thought her appreciation of the male form knew its boundaries, but apparently not.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy? Are you lost? The contraband pornography store that used to be here closed down. Guess you'll just have to use your imagination." She turned from him and started up the steps and opened the door to her shop.

"Actually," he said slowly. "I was on my way to your shop. Someone told me I could find something I was looking for here." She stopped and turned on her heel, but he didn't avert his eyes quickly enough. She felt the heat pool in her stomach as she watched his eyes travel the length of her bare legs and up the grey pencil skirt she was wearing to rest on her face. He gave her a wolfish grin.

"Nice shawl."

"Shut up. I don't like you," she said boldly, mustering up memories of his cruelty at Hogwarts. "If you want to buy something, come in. Otherwise I'd rather we didn't speak."

He looked briefly taken aback before his mask of indifference fell back into place. He followed her up the steps into the shop. Once the door was closed behind him, she watched him look around with his hands in his dark corduroy pockets. The shop was very minimal; dark mahogany floors, pale teal walls decorated with mirrors and mannequins that she found on sale in a vintage shop in Brighton. Everything had a very old-magic feel to it, lots of leaf-shaped accessories and wood touches. The chairs near the fitting room were taken out of her great-grandmothers storage room.

"How…pretty," he drawled. "These are all your designs?" He walked over to a mannequin that was sporting a floor-length wool skirt with long slits up the side, and a lace peasant blouse tucked into its high waist. It was belted with a chain-mail strap.

"They are," she said, leaning on the counter behind her. _He's gotten so much taller…is he as fit as he looks or does he have a really good tailor? _Shaking her head, she asked, "So what brings you here?"

"I need gifts for women. Fashionable women. Jewelry, scarves, etcetera." He cleared his throat and began unclasping the silver serpent that held his cloak together. "Do you have something like that?"

"For a woman? Well, what's she like? Does she have simple taste or extravagant taste?" Ginny asked, moving behind the counter to unlock one the display cases. "Is she a friend or—"

"No," he corrected impatiently as he removed his cloak. Her mouth went dry when she saw the form-fitting white shirt beneath. "_Women_. I need four separate gifts. One of them is pretty demure, pearls and the like, the other is pretty wild—"

"Am I to take it," Ginny said dryly, a frown tugging at her lips, "that none of these gifts should read as 'friendly?'" He didn't meet her eyes but kept looking around the store, sliding his hands back into his pockets. She watched the muscles move under his skin.

"Right in one," he smiled, and finally walked over to the display case. "Here's the thing about running a business though, Weasely. Y'see, you keep looking at me like I'm the scum on your heels, but I'm about to drop a very large sum of money in your store, and if you play your cards right, I will keep coming back here and spending more money. So it would be in your best interest to smile and try to be civil." He never looked away from her as he spoke, and in his proximity as he leaned casually on the glass counter she could see the flecks of silver in his pale grey eyes. His glance was electric, and she hated the way she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

"Alright Malfoy," she said softly, smoothing her pony tail back and finally breaking eye contact. "I will pretend that every time I look at you I don't feel a sense of resentment over the appalling way you treated me at Hogwarts. I will forget every foul word, every cutting remark, and every moment of degradation. Do you feel better?"

He was silent. She expected him to glare at her and walk out of her store, but instead his jaw tensed and he said simply, "I was a child."

She blinked. "So was I."

"Fair enough. But I'm not going to apologize to you for being a spoiled kid six years ago. All I ask is that you treat me like a customer, not a beast."

She bit her lip and looked at her hands. She really should tell him to get out anyway, but finally she said, "Who suggested you come here?"

He stepped back, the colour no longer so high in his cheeks. "Pansy Parkinson. She said you were all the rage."

Ginny grimaced. "I should have this shop condemned."

Amazingly, Draco barked with laughter. "Yeah," he said, between chuckles. "Yeah she's really terrible."

Ginny felt herself genuinely smiling. "I feel that I should warn you, Malfoy," she said softly, leaning forward on the counter,"These things have a way of getting out…one of your girls there could find out that you're buying pretty things for another." She watched as his fey eyes travelled her face and neck and lingered briefly on the swell of her blouse before meeting her eyes again. She felt her face growing hot._ Oh if Ron could see me now._

"That would be a problem, Weasely," he smirked, and it sat so differently on his adult face, "if they didn't all live in different countries. Now," he said, ignoring Ginny's indignant goggling. "Let's see some pretty things."

* * *

"I thought so," Hermione smiled, closing her book excitedly. "I told Harry my suspicions, too."

Remus Lupin looked into the bright face of the young girl sitting before him and smiled back at her, flattered at her academic adoration. He unwrapped the scarf from around his neck and settled more comfortably into the over-stuffed chair in The Owl. If memory served him correctly, this place was the go-to punk hang out when he was at Hogwarts.

Shaking the cobwebs of memories from his head, he said, "Yes, it was James who actually figured out how useful the spell could be to us; I had no idea exactly how capable it was of solving the hardest part of our conundrum."

"Well I plan on re-familiarizing myself with it in the coming weeks," Hermione said, pausing to sip at her tea. "Harry's asked me to create an algorithm similar to the one I created years ago—remember that map we created, in secret, which kept track of the heads of noble houses in the United Kingdom?"

Remus nodded. "The first time I recommended the grimoire. The New Order wanted to keep track of aquitted Voldemort sympathizers, no?"

"Yes, exactly, but this time," Hermione sighed, rubbing at her temples, "he wants to see if he can find traces of that same blood in noble households in the EWU."

"Why on earth…" Remus began.

"Because they've left," Hermione whispered, leaning in conspiratorially. "They've gone. We traced all of them as far at the EWU floo port in Sofia, but that's as far as we can get." Remus felt his jaw drop, the pulse at his throat racing. He couldn't fathom the possibility that this dark period of history wasn't over, that there was still more to chase, always more possibilities.

"Anyway," the dark-haired witch said, signalling for more tea. "Harry will be working closely with Draco Malfoy for a little while. He knows the area and its noble lords very well."

Remus raised his eyebrows, though he was not surprised. "Yes, I remember when he was elected for that position. Harry must be thrilled, working with Lucius' son."

"Harry's mature," Hermione said proudly. "He's capable of putting the past behind him." The werewolf pretended not to notice her cheeks grow red at her quick praise of Harry, and wondered whether _she _was capable of putting the past behind her. He had a strong suspicion that her unwavering loyalty to Harry, after all these years, had grown into a very different sort of dedication.

"So!" She exclaimed quickly, ignoring Remus' knowing smile. "I can't thank you enough for agreeing to review my dissertation. I'm quite nervous that you'll hate it."

"Hermione, considering I was fascinated by the level of research and dedication you put into your 3rd year essays, I'm sure it will be an exquisite pleasure to read your paper." He picked at some lint at his cardigan, and looked at her seriously through the steam of his tea. "That being said, my dear, if I do find something to be factually erroneous in your work, or feel that your analysis leaves something to be desired, then I will make sure to bring it to your attention. My academic reputation means less and less to me each day…but yours," he paused, unscrewing a flask and pouring three drops of wolfsbane into his tea. It made a soft popping noise and a plume of grey smoke arose from the cup. "Your reputation and light will only glow brighter. I'm honoured to be a part of it."

Hermione's eyes were bright across the table, and she reached out and took his hand. "That means so much to me, professor."

"Remus," he corrected softly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I sent word to Sirius a week ago about my impending arrival and I'm sure he's putting quite a hold on his busy schedule for me, so I really must rush." He gathered the cylindrical leather pouch that contained a copy of Hermione's precious thesis. He held out his hand to her.

"Always a pleasure, Hermione. I'll be in touch as soon as I'm through with it."

The young witch stood up, her crimson robe falling around her elegantly. She held his hand in both of hers and smiled warmly at him. "You're like a brother to me, Remus."

He smiled tightly before he had a chance to become emotional. "Take care."

Stepping into the fading sunlight of Diagon Alley, Remus looked north. The sky was streaked with orange and pink and his highly refined ears picked up the sleepy twittering of nearby birds. He could see the hazy waning moon glow bright in the still-light sky and smiled tightly. It was time so see Sirius.

* * *

_Please review._


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